Blog | L is for Literacy

Phonemic Awareness Assessment: How to Read the Results and Know What to Do Next

June 30, 2026

A teacher sits beside a young elementary student at a classroom desk, smiling warmly as the child speaks. The teacher holds a clipboard and pen, suggesting an informal phonemic awareness assessment in progress. Other students work independently in the background.

A phonemic awareness assessment is a short oral screening that measures whether a child can hear, isolate, blend, segment, and manipulate individual sounds in spoken words, with no print and no pictures involved, and it matters because that sound-level skill is the foundation decoding is built on. A low score doesn’t just flag a struggling reader. It points to a specific, teachable gap underneath the reading.

Science of Reading

Phonemic Awareness Activities: What Actually Makes Them Work

June 29, 2026

A teacher leads a small group of young students in a phonemic awareness activity, with all four children holding up one finger to segment the first sound in a word while colorful manipulative blocks sit on the table in front of them.

Phonemic awareness activities are structured practice in hearing, identifying, and manipulating the individual sounds in spoken words, and the most effective ones coordinate with the letter-sound connections students are learning. Done well, they build the auditory foundation a child needs before decoding can happen at all.

Science of Reading

What Is Phonemic Awareness? The Skill Most Teachers Were Never Trained to Teach

June 28, 2026

A teacher sits across from a young student at a classroom table with a reading guide open between them, demonstrating phonemic awareness instruction in a one-on-one setting.

Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate the individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken words. It is entirely oral. No letters, no print, no books. And it is one of the strongest predictors of whether a child will learn to read successfully, because it is the skill that lets her connect the sounds she hears to the letters she sees. Without it, phonics instruction has nothing to hook onto.

Science of Reading

The Phonological Awareness Continuum: What Comes Before What, and Why It Matters

May 7, 2026

A teacher with a notepad and pen sits across from a young boy at a small table, listening attentively as he responds during a one-on-one phonological awareness assessment.

The phonological awareness continuum is the developmental sequence sound skills move through, from the largest units of spoken language down to the smallest: words, syllables, onset-rime, and phonemes. Knowing where a student is on the continuum is what tells teachers exactly which sound-level skill to teach next, instead of running the same activities for every student and hoping something lands.

Science of Reading

Phonemic Awareness vs Phonics: The Distinction Most Teachers Were Never Taught

May 4, 2026

A young student practices writing words in a notebook at a classroom desk, demonstrating the connection between phonemic awareness and phonics.

Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate the individual sounds in spoken words. Phonics is the ability to connect those sounds to printed letters. The distinction matters because when phonics instruction isn’t working for a student, the problem is often upstream: the sound awareness that phonics depends on hasn’t been built yet.

Science of Reading

Teaching Phonics Without Losing the Love of Reading

April 20, 2026

If you have been holding the question of teaching phonics at a distance because you are afraid the answer is that you have to choose — between rigor and joy, between the science and the classroom you have built — Carol’s story is the clearest answer I know to that fear.

Struggling Readers

He Knows Letters. So Why Can’t He Read?

April 13, 2026

If you have a student who knows letters but can’t seem to read unfamiliar words, you already know the particular confusion of watching a child do everything right and still not get there. He’s not struggling with effort. He’s not disengaged. He knows his letters. So what’s happening?

Science of Reading

Language Comprehension vs Reading Comprehension: Why They’re Not the Same Thing

April 10, 2026

She reads every word correctly. Her fluency is solid — maybe even above benchmark. She doesn’t stumble, doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t ask for help. And then you ask her to tell you what the passage was about, and she stares at you like you’ve asked her to explain it in a language she doesn’t speak. Sound familiar?

Science of Reading

Word Recognition and Language Comprehension: The Two Sides of Reading

April 9, 2026

Word recognition and language comprehension are the two components that produce reading comprehension. Word recognition is the ability to accurately and efficiently identify printed words — connecting letters to sounds and eventually recognizing words automatically. Language comprehension is the ability to understand spoken language — vocabulary, grammar, background knowledge, and the ability to make inferences.

Science of Reading

What Is Listening Comprehension — And Why It Matters More Than Most Teachers Realize

April 8, 2026

A teacher reads aloud from a picture book called The Wishing Tree to a group of delighted elementary students sitting on a rug in a cozy classroom reading corner, with labeled bookshelves and picture books surrounding them.

Listening comprehension is the ability to make meaning from spoken language: taking in vocabulary, processing sentence structure, connecting ideas to what you already know, and drawing inferences beyond what’s stated. It matters because it becomes the strongest predictor of reading comprehension by the intermediate grades, which means a student can decode every word and still miss what the text means.

L is for Literacy

Phonemic Awareness Assessment: How to Read the Results and Know What to Do Next

Phonemic Awareness Activities: What Actually Makes Them Work

What Is Phonemic Awareness? The Skill Most Teachers Were Never Trained to Teach

The Phonological Awareness Continuum: What Comes Before What, and Why It Matters

Phonemic Awareness vs Phonics: The Distinction Most Teachers Were Never Taught

Teaching Phonics Without Losing the Love of Reading

He Knows Letters. So Why Can’t He Read?

Language Comprehension vs Reading Comprehension: Why They’re Not the Same Thing

Word Recognition and Language Comprehension: The Two Sides of Reading

What Is Listening Comprehension — And Why It Matters More Than Most Teachers Realize

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